Spring Wizard will be March 14-16 at the DoubleTree Hotel (formerly Wyndham) in Syracuse. As usual ITEC staff will be available to meet with you and your staff informally during Wizard. In addition, ITEC staff will be available for more formal, scheduled meetings to discuss any concerns or issues you may have with regards to ITEC’s support of your campus. If you would like a one-on-one meeting with ITEC staff or myself during the conference or the lunch break, please email Linda Delaney (Linda.Delaney@itec.suny.edu) with suggested days and times. We feel that it is important to "keep in touch" with you in order to best support your campus.

We ask that major tasks not be scheduled during this timeframe in order for ITEC staff to attend the conference. We also ask that non-critical support requests not be submitted during this period or note in the request that an immediate response is not required. Emergencies (e.g., production system down) will be handled as documented on the ITEC web site at:

Generally this procedure states that placing a call to ITEC at 716-878-ITEC (4832) will connect you with office staff that will be able to reach the appropriate support staff. If office staff is unavailable, a recorded message will provide the cell phone numbers of key staff that you may call. They, in turn, will contact the appropriate support person. As there is good connectivity at the conference, ITEC will be able to handle emergencies that arise.

We appreciate your cooperation and the opportunity to better get to know our membership!

The following is a schedule and the abstracts of ITEC-related presentations at Wizard. Some of the sessions are updates and continuations of previous Wizards and STC presentations. Please note the session on @Task Project Management and Help Desk – Webinar on project management and the DR Software and Services – STROHL session.

@Task project management software is being implemented at ITEC for remote service project management. If you are in need of project management software, this software may be a viable option.

The DR Software and Services – STROHL presentation will show how these applications have matured since 9/11. The presentation will focus on how a campus can use this software to determine business continuity expectations, build a disaster recovery plan, and monitor the recovery during a disaster. This type of software application can be extended on a campus to more than an IT-related disaster.

Beginning in the fall of 2006, ITEC and SICAS assisted NCCC in their migration from VMS to AIX. In this session, parties involved in the migration will discuss the project, their experiences along the way, roadblocks and lessons learned. Two particular topics that will be addressed that you might find of interest are: (1) The script conversion process we utilized. (2) Our use of @task as our project management tool (there is a separate session dedicated to @task scheduled for Friday).

This session will provide information on ITEC’s hosting solutions for Angel and will include discussion of technology direction, policies and procedures, complimentary offerings (DR etc.), and schedules.

There will also be a demonstration of a comprehensive IT BC/DR planning software package which is in use at several other universities and university systems and which includes IT BC/DR information storage, risk analysis, plan generation, automated notification, and incident management capabilities. This presentation will be done by Strohl Corp. Their web site is: http://www.strohlsystems.com

4:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m. DR Wrap-up Session: ITEC Staff

We will be discussing the software and how it might serve SUNY college. ITEC will also discuss the use of Confluence for IT BC/DR planning. This will be demonstrated by ITEC staff on-line. Since Confluence can also be used for sharing documentation for a multiplicity of SUNY-wide purposes, this may be a good introduction to its use for those still unfamiliar with it.

ITEC will be discussing the VMware Infrastructure 3 (VI3) product suite and concepts. This will include a recap of last Wizard's presentation along with VMware product updates. ITEC will also give an update on their server consolidation project which will detail struggles and successes during the consolidation process. ITEC will present an overview of some of the hard and soft cost savings and expected ROI from migrating to a virtualized environment. The presentation will wrap up with a discussion of x86 virtualization alternatives including Xen, Virtual Iron and others. And of course, a live demo!

This session will focus on an introduction to the @Task product and capabilities followed by a description of the benefits the product offers to distributed workgroups. @task 4.0 is a project management and help desk software that gives project managers the powerful benefits of the latest technology and sophisticated management techniques in a web-based solution. It works on any platform (PC or Mac), any Internet browser, most databases, and servers. @task is available as a securely hosted service (users simply need Internet access), or can be installed locally on an organization's intranet. Ease of use makes adoption quick and easy for team members and helps adopters rapidly gain benefits from using the software. Organizations can define initiatives and projects, automate processes, view centralized real-time data, streamline workflows, eliminate unnecessary paperwork and meetings, track deadlines and timesheets—and start reaping increases in productivity from their teams. Additional information can be found on @task’s website: www.attask.com.